


Warm Regards from Clearbrook

by popocco



Category: Octopath Traveler (Video Game)
Genre: (... eventually), Epistolary, Gen, Getting Together, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, did I mention pining???
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:22:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28740966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popocco/pseuds/popocco
Summary: Alfyn pens a letter.
Relationships: Alfyn Greengrass & Zeph, Alfyn Greengrass/Therion
Comments: 23
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> dont fuckign @ me about my 785645 ongoing projects i know i know i knOW im just so insane rn. ive played like 100h of this game in the past week. i'm ill

_Therion,_

_Maybe I don’t need to address you by name at the start there, given that I’ve already handed this to you in person and all- It’s my first time writing one of these, or, writing one and finishing it at least! First time delivering one, too! You remember the story I told you, about me and Zeph and the girl who moved away, over some flagons that time back, I reckon. Always deliver your own letters, I said! And gods willing that’s what I’ve done at last!_

_I hope I really did muster the guts to give this to you, after all the hullabaloo of trying to get it on paper. Maybe that’s not the sort of thing you write in a letter, but I don’t properly know what sort of thing you DO write in a letter, more specifically than words that is, and that’s just stating the obvious I suppose isn’t it. I know I’m meandering like a great doddering old fool already, but all the times I sat down and tried to think about every precise word all careful-like none of it sounded right, and I got too nervous about what I’m trying to say and gave up. I wasted a lot of paper! That probably isn’t the sort of thing you write in a letter either, but the only way I’ve managed to get out more than a “mayhap” or a “perchance” so far has been just letting the ink flow as it does without stopping to fret over nothing the way I’ve been doing. Sorry about that! If this is the letter you’re reading, that is, granted that I’ve managed to hand it over. I hope I did. I sure hope you’re reading this!_

_I’ve used a lot of ink so far just telling you about how I’m writing to you, which hopefully you know already by now, but that’s not why I’ve (hopefully) given you this letter of course. I’m going on here in such a way that I’m sure it seems like I’m too deep in my cups, but if that were the case my handwriting would surely be a lot worse than it is, even if that’s never been the neatest thing to start. I had to practice the alphabet for a fair bit, before I got to working on this! But that’s not what I wanted to tell you about either- there I go again, golly. This is one of the toughest things I’ve done in a minute! I gotta just try to say what I’ve been meaning to say!_

_Here goes: I’ve been thinking about you, Therion, since I’ve been planted down in one place here for a long enough time to have time to think about you more than I normally might be- which I have been. I’ve been thinking a lot about when we were all traveling together, you and me and everyone, and I suppose that’s a fairly usual thing to ponder on when you’ve spent as much time out on the road seeing the world as we all have. It’s true I miss the company, but the point here is, I guess, it’s your company I find myself missing lately in the particular._

_Since I’ve delivered this in person by now I guess that means I managed to track down the slippery master thief himself through some wild stroke of luck, or better yet be tracked down by him, that is to say you, and I probably don’t miss you just as much at present on account of being in your charming company and all. But the point is that I feel like I don’t want to be missing you quite so much, in general I mean, and instead of rambling all calamitously here about what I’ve been getting up to and asking about what you’ve been getting up to on your own end, I would really rather just fall asleep at the tavern going on about all that in person like we used to. You probably wouldn’t want to read whatever mess of a letter would come out of me trying to say more than one thing at a time anyways, if this one here’s been any indication._

_You’ve always had a way of keeping to yourself, I know. So if you’d rather not find some way to, I suppose, make plans or correspondences or however you’d go about saying it formally, to the end of meeting up for a brew or three whenever it so pleases you, just to waggle our jaws a bit, then that’s up to you, friend. No hard feelings! If such a thing doesn’t sound all too terrible, though- Well, you’ve certainly got your ways! And I reckon that deft hand of yours puts mine to shame with a quill and ink as sure as it does with just about everything else!_

_Eager to hear from you at your own leisure (or not, that’s fine too),_

_Alfyn Greengrass_

\---

The look Zeph is wearing as he scans the ink-smeared, smudged and blotched sheaf of parchment in his hands is one of the very deepest sympathetic contrition. Under the snickers of laughter wracking it into goofy wrinkles, that is.

“I got it,” Alfyn mutters, red-faced, and breathless on top from his run out the door. “Give that back already n’ quit gigglin’ at me, you ass. I’ll do it over again. Shucks.”

He makes a swipe for the letter, but Zeph swiftly turns out of way to shield it from reclamation, and subsequent condemnation to the mountain of crumpled drafts yet cluttering the floor of Alfyn’s home.

“Oh come off it Alf, I ain’t even done reading yet. I’m not laughing ‘cause it’s _bad,_ ” Zeph says over his shoulder, continuing to giggle like a right ass, while he fends off Alfyn’s half-hearted grabs with his elbow. “It’s just… it’s very _you._ It’s definitely you.”

“So then it _is_ bad!” Alfyn wails, throwing himself away from his cruel, no-good, cold hearted liar of a best friend in the world, to sulk in a tight crouch on the ground. “It’s- it’s clumsy, an’ dull-witted an’ repetitive and embarrassin’- If I’m this much of a wreck just _now_ then how in the bloody hells am I ever gonna give it over in person?!”

“You don’t _have_ to give it over in person,” Zeph sighs, which at least makes him stop laughing at Alfyn’s crummy pathetic letter so much. “The whole point of a letter is to convey things when you’re not face to face, if you’ll recall. If you’re already so set on tracking down this Therion of yours to begin with, wouldn’t it be easier to just talk to him about this in the first place?”

“You know it ain’t,” Alfyn grumbles miserably into the dirt, blushing deeper yet. And Therion ain’t _his,_ besides!!!

“This is barely a confession,” Zeph comments, merciless in that bloody forthright and frank way he’s got. “Askin’ a bloke you’ve already drank and spoken with any number of times to drink and talk with you some more isn’t very romantic.”

“We can’t all be _romantic_ like you n’ Mercedes, with, with all yer poetic words an’ forlorn smellin’ perfumed envelopes,” Alfyn laments, mussing his own hair self-consciously. “Speakin o’ which, you know exactly why I _do_ have to deliver it my own self!”

“That I certainly do. You’re welcome, by the way, for standing in as anecdotal smalltalk in your opening paragraph here.” Zeph flaps the letter, now thoroughly read and folded up again, pointedly in Alfyn’s direction, but still fails to relinquish it.

He sighs again, then, much in the same way he would before he set about to pacify his kid sister down from a tantrum. Alfyn doesn’t appreciate that.

Zeph crouches beside him and throws an arm around his shoulder.

“I was just pullin’ your leg, but I can see it missed the mark by some. Listen, I don’t know what the other drafts are like, but I bet this letter here is the least crumpled into a ball out of the lot. So just keep it for now, at least until you write one you’re happier with than this. It does get your feelings across in the end, after a fair bit of nonsense!”

“Gee, thanks.”

Ever since he reunited with Mercedes, Zeph has been awful smug about the fact that he’s the first between the pair of them to get himself a sweetheart. Seeing him out of his funk, not to mention finally having righted that particular thirteen-year-old mistake haunting Alfyn’s own conscience, has been a great weight off both their shoulders. It’s also made his best mate something of an intolerable know-it-all on matters of the heart. Alfyn isn’t going to tell him that just now, but it sure has.

He’s right, though, ain’t he. Alfyn can just, keep it folded up, find an envelope to seal it in even, and then maybe it can just stay in that envelope in his largely abandoned home for the rest of eternity, doing no lasting harm to a friendship he’s grown to treasure more and more with time and embarrassing nobody whosoever.

He didn’t come back home to Clearbrook just to sit at his desk getting ink all over his hands, anyways. Rather viciously spent in the regard of wracking his tragic insufficient brain for any subtle, natural way to tell the fella he’s come to fancy that he fancies him, and still leave him an easy out in the case that these feelings of fancy aren’t a requited thing, which is fine obviously and Alfyn would still want to stay friends with Therion after all they’ve seen each other through anyways, _obviously-_ Alfyn goes back about doing what he _did_ come home to do. Word of a nasty, fast-spreading lung cough had taken him all the way up to Northreach for several weeks, and very thoroughly exhausted a number of staple reagents most bountifully and exclusively native to his own riverland birthplace.

… It was different being in the city again on his lonesome, with the memory of Therion’s hard, anxious face lit by the firelight of the tavern still so clearly worrying his heart. He had barely a moment or a thought to spare for the duration of his most recent stay in the frostlands, but back in warmer climes Alfyn strangely finds himself dwelling on the things he wishes he’d mustered the courage to say to his erstwhile companion back when it might have actually made some kind of difference.

Like maybe, “I will always be at your side if you’ll have me”, or, “I’d never throw away anything as rare and precious as your trust,” or… or… bah. Gah.

Gods but he is a _sop!_ And a damn hopeless blockheaded one too far gone to save, to be making himself blush and sweat just picking herbs!!!

Pick herbs Alfyn continues to do, properly as he set out to, among flowers and roots and barks and mosses and fungi and all the rest. He visits all his favourite spots around Clearbrook, and a little further out around from that still, habitually careful to mind the health of the plant populations he’s half come to regard as siblings brought up in the same hometown. The familiar comfort of these serene, isolated fields and thickets is unfortunately an extremely poor deterrent from continuing to occupy himself with thoughts of a certain slightly statured pickpocket.

It occurs to him long into one such peaceful, dreamlike day, that he can’t remember what he used to think about damn near at all when he was out on his own within nature like this. And that’s so deeply embarrassing a realization that when Alfyn returns back to the village at nightfall, it’s with his hair glued down to his forehead in thick haphazard streaks soaked thoroughly with frigid stream water. He tells Zeph he lost his footing and fell in when asked, but the knowing, simpering smile he gets in response easily lays bare the fundamental absurdity of that excuse (never mind the fact that his clothes are all dry). And feels very deeply annoying. Zeph is annoying, lately.

The letter, for its part, stays obediently folded and pressed flat beneath the heavy wooden board at Alfyn’s work counter used for chopping and crushing those burlier sorts of medicinal things. Taking on the scents of the base solvents he grinds and mixes before he retires at night, to keep himself occupied, but otherwise protected from the mundane dangers of being a stationary object in Alfyn’s cluttered domain.

Keeping him awake at night.

On one such sleepless night, the achy restlessness in Alfyn’s shins and the distracted thoughts spooling up in his mind succeed in luring him out of his bed with a defeated sigh. He feels like he’s been sighing a lot these days… He ignores the hypnotic waves emanating from that damn letter, beckoning for him to open it up and reread it and improve it or maybe just rip it up into shreds, and stumbles over to his coat instead.

The crude, trodden-down path of the village is cool and dusty under Alfyn’s bare feet. He spares a glance in the direction of the alehouse’s welcoming lantern, but he left his money at home, and weren’t truly in the mood to drown his worries in the first place anyways. He’s not seen any fun in drinking alone anymore for some time now.

Lacking much thought as to any ultimate destination, or in general, he quickly finds himself climbing the slope up to the little graveyard not far from the town’s eastern road out. He did check in with Ma just about the very first thing after he got back from Northreach, of course- tidied up the headstone a little, brought her a fresh handful of the hawthorn flowers she always liked, chatted about his latest travels. It’s not so strange he’d end up coming to visit again so soon though, plagued with incurable worry as he’s felt ever since sitting down to pen the dastard missive that’s now driven him out of his own house at night. He’s always been a real mama’s boy and wouldn’t shy from admitting it.

Another deep, only barely calming sigh leaves him, and Alfyn hunkers down into the damp grass with little regard for the seat of his nightclothes taking on a stain. He crosses his legs to get comfortable, and then his arms against the nighttime chill and the nearby buzz of hungry mosquitos.

“Sorry to bend yer ear so late after dark like this,” he reproaches himself, startled at the immediate bashful lump rising in his throat. Maybe part of it is sadness- it wasn’t only yesterday that these sorts of conversations had to become one-sided, but Alfyn feels very aware now that he never got the chance to hear from his Ma’s own lips about how to go wooing someone better than he knows how to on his own. He’s come to learn pretty well that there will always be new tiny, mundane little things to realize he’s gotta mourn like this, but it doesn’t make them any easier to get used to.

Ahh, that’s no good-- he didn’t come all the way up here past midnight just to get weepy, that won’t do. He clears his throat, scrubs his eyes, starts over.

“I- I wrote my first letter this week,” he declares, and his heart starts beating giddily at the mere mention of it. “Heh. It sure ain’t a masterpiece, but Zeph gave it his blessin’. Least I think he did. He’s been a real pain in my backside ever since he and Mercedes got things workin’ out between ‘em, I swear. Maybe that’s just my jealousy talkin’, though… Didn’t think I could be such a petty man, but here I am complainin’ at my best friend’s happiness all the same I guess.”

“I didn’t realize bein’ sweet on someone could make you so… nervous, all the time. It’s like I can’t sit still even when I’m asleep lately, when I _manage_ to sleep. And that’s the strange part, y’know! It ain’t _like_ this, not even at all, when I’m actually _with_ this f-- p… person…”

Alfyn balks, feeling stricken across the face by his own faltering confidence.

He… well, he can’t presume to know how things are in those big modern cities full of art and culture and… decadence, and such, but out here in the burgs… There are plenty of folk who’d frown on a man falling for another man. He definitely doesn’t remember even knowing it was _possible_ to be sly, back when Ma was still around for him to ask what she thought about it. Most people just tend to never talk or ask on that topic in the first place, according to his own long memory of coming up in Clearbrook.

Zeph’s been with him through thick and thin, and is just a rare enough kinda bloke not to put any stock in whatever gender his best friend turns out to actually rather _prefer_ it seems like. But Zeph’s already a special guy to begin with, Alfyn is forced to confront himself with right here in the very moment. He feels a surpassing stab of guilt, for having the bollocks to whine about the unconditional support he’s been getting, where he knows some of the other people he grew up with would just as soon turn cold as ice on him.

But, in the end, he’s a piss poor liar by nature- even to someone who isn’t really truly here with him. The portrait of the woman in his memories is ever smiling, proud of him- no reason to paint over it with clumsy anxious strokes like this.

On the contrary--

“You’d get along great with him, Ma,” Alfyn grins. “Hah, well, maybe you wouldn’t agree so much with his chosen profession, I guess. I’ll tell you ‘bout that later, maybe. What I mean is, he’s the type you just wanna… spoil right to death with affection, heheh. ‘Cause he _acts_ like it all just bounces off, an’ like he don’t need it in the first place, even.”

“But you can really _tell,_ when something does make him happy- and the smallest thing can do it, like havin’ him try out an ale made with one specific strain of barley you _knew_ he’d like, just for example- It ain’t like his face lights up in any kinda obvious way, or anything. Heck, he barely smiles at all-- anyways, his eyebrows just sorta ease up on to his forehead the _tiniest_ little bit. But it’s like it makes the whole rest of him fair start singin’ out loud and doin’ a jig. It’s…”

Alfyn’s head falls into the palm of his hand, burning bright hot, like he’s come down with a fever that’ll soon kill him left untreated.

“It’s real nice.”

He feels much more positively about that letter, now. If anything near as sappy and completely true as this had managed to make it into writing, he’d have already chewed and swallowed the whole composition and chased it down with a bottle of treefrog poison.

“Talkin’ like this has helped me feel a little less like I’m about to mulch this poor ol’ melon sittin’ on my shoulders from sheer overthinkin’, haha…” Alfyn takes a deep breath in through his mouth, and the cool, gentle smell of the graveyard’s moist dirt and its newly placed bouquets physically centres him enough to abate some of the aggressive bloodflow up to his face. He smiles wryly at the silent headstone before him. “Thanks for humorin’ yer fool son.”

He’s said all he can think to say, but his insecurity and racing heartbeat keep him craving the quiet company he’s got out here under the stars. He doesn’t stand up and get back home into bed just yet. He wraps the folds of his coat tighter about his middle, and lets himself fall back fully into the grass. The ponytail he forgot to let down before getting under the covers earlier bores slightly uncomfortably into the back of his head.

Alfyn still hasn’t made up his mind about what to do with his letter.

Well… he’s just about replenished his satchel, so it’s getting to be time to hit the road again anyways. As for his destination…

Maybe he’ll start by heading up the west pass into Bolderfall, and see where the fates may find an apothecary to be in demand among the lands beyond. With or without a sheaf of stained parchment on him, he’d still like to try and pay Therion a visit. Just a friendly visit. Maybe the little Lady Cordelia knows where to start looking for him, being a former “employer” and all.

Maybe, if he’s lucky enough that their paths cross, their itineraries might also let them travel together again. Even if only for a day or two.

Alfyn remembers Therion’s mouth pursing grumpily one night, after they’d set up camp a ways off the coastland trail into Goldport, perched atop a driftwood log. Bare feet pressing patches into the long, thin beach grasses as he dumped sand out of his boots.

His entire chest constricts with unspeakable fondness, and with a tortured groan he rolls on to his stomach to lay face down in the dirt.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alfyn wastes a great deal of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that "epistolary" tag isnt just for show i promise it just. is not applicable to this chapter

Alfyn has been restocked, rested, and ready to leave town in every practical respect for close to a full week.

And yet, for the third day in a row now, he’s found himself making the rounds between Clearbrook’s inhabitants as they do their shopping, dry their laundry, go for afternoon walks, play and relax near the river, and generally enjoy life to its fullest despite Alfyn’s restless mother henning over their health and wellbeing. 

“Mother henning” is what Zeph has been calling it today, at any rate. Tomorrow it will probably be “badgering”. And progressively more bothersome animals as the days go on, as such.

It’s not that Alfyn _plans_ to still be doing it tomorrow! It’s just--!

“Look,” Zeph says diplomatically, around a mouthful of his lunch. (Some cured boar meat on a slice from the loaf of bread his neighbour baked for each of them, as thanks for just advising on his arthritis symptoms yesterday. Alfyn still hasn’t touched his own similar lunch, yet.) “If that letter is _still_ causing you so much grief, doesn’t that seem like some sorta sign? Maybe you should just take this whole thing a bit slower. If you leave it here, I’ll make sure it stays where it ought to and nothin’ happens to it. Promise.”

“But stilllll---” Alfyn whines aimlessly, burying his forehead deeper into the bridge his forearms make across his kneecaps.

“I know, I know. You might _be_ ready by the time you find this fella, and then if you don’t have it with you, who’s to say when the next opportunity might come? You said as much yesterday, and I take all this hemming and hawing you’re doing now to mean you’re still of the same opinion?”

“Mmmmmh,” Alfyn groans in the affirmative.

He hears Zeph sigh at him again, the way he’s done so very often this week, sounding mildly exasperated. Then Alfyn feels the palm of Zeph’s hand cup the top of his head and josh it around not too delicately.

“I take it _you_ know you’re acting like a bit of a baby?”

“Obviously,” Alfyn grumbles.

“Good. As long as you can keep at least that amount of self-awareness about you I don’t think you can go _too_ far wrong by own judgment in this, even if you don’t seem to think so yourself for whatever fool reason.”

Alfyn wants to protest, but can form no coherent argument.

The conversation, if it could be called that, sojourns for a while as Zeph seems to focus on finishing the rest of his meal. Alfyn continues staring down into the grass between his own legs, diverting himself with the movements of some ants roaming up and down along the blades. Getting to where they need to be, doing what they need to do in the world of their own little ant hopes and dreams.

Of _course_ he knows he’s just moping for the sake of moping, at this point. There’s probably nobody on the whole earth more aware of Alfyn’s horrid susceptibility to dragging his feet than the very owner of those two blasted heavy, stubborn feet himself.

It took him entire _months_ to just take that first step on to the road, after he’d already made up his mind to do it back at the beginning of all this.

… Therion was to thank for that push out the door, too, wasn’t he? The severe-looking, battle hardy stranger who just popped up in the middle of town one day, precisely when Alfyn needed just that tiny little bit of extra courage to see him through.

He hopes he’s ever been able to give even a half as much courage back. Or as many smiles... or warm happy moments, or quiet, peaceful moments… or memories that just make him feel nice inside. Therion hasn’t got an awful lot of nice memories- he said so himself. Alfyn wants to gift him so many he won’t know what to do with them all. So many they start to spill out of all the pockets he’s got hidden on the inside of that cloak of his!

“If you ain’t gonna eat it yourself, I’ll take that lunch of yours off your hands before the ants get to any more of it,” Zeph offers with middling sarcasm in his tone.

“Paws off!” Alfyn warns, and finally breaks vigil for the dirt under his own rear to look around for the handkerchief he left _his_ sliced bread atop. That’s still where it should be, on the ground between his and Zeph’s rumps, but he’s gotta wrest a big hunk of jerky out of the sneak thieving cad’s hands before he can enjoy it himself. After he’s brushed away those last few six-legged hangers on from the bread, of course.

The answer, like it’s been the whole time, is for Alfyn to _just_ quit sitting on his palms and go do what he needs to already. The town’s in good hands, like it’s already been the whole time ever since he first left it to Zeph in pursuit of further horizons. And that was never more than an excuse to keep stalling anyways, now _and_ in the past.

“I’m leaving tomorrow morning,” Alfyn states defiantly, and with purpose. Thinks he does, at least.

“Oh, really?” Zeph has the tact not to _look_ as incredulous as he sounds.

“I mean it,” Alfyn insists, and takes a big vicious bite of meat and bread to enforce how firm and decisive he is being.

Slightly _too_ big to be easily manageable, and Zeph immediately bursts into hysterics at the urgent stretching of Alfyn’s cheeks around the ambitious quantity of food struggling to stay contained therein.

A bit of frivolous laughter heartily improves the overall tone of Alfyn’s remaining afternoon. He finally manages to leave the good people of Clearbrook well enough alone, after so much persistent hovering, and refocuses his energies on spending some highly overdue time with Nina. She’s long since made a full recovery from that horrid bite, and returned to her usual energetic self: a joy to pass the hours with.

The little sprout’s already had her thirteenth nameday, turns out, and quit being so much a _sprout_ lately as she is a sapling- the top of her head nearly reaches Alfyn’s chin! She makes fun of him far more doggedly than her big brother would ever, when he finds himself getting teary over how quick she’s started growing up all of a sudden. She’ll be taller than H’aanit at the rate she’s stretching out, he says with a laugh, while he’s rubbing his eyes. Who’s H’aanit, she asks, and then the great majority of their visit together is spent in colourful discussion of Alfyn’s dear travelling companions.

They stand up from Zeph and Nina’s dinner table early on, when Nina is struck with a creativity that she absolutely must act upon. She leads the way racing around back to her brother’s modest personal garden, and here, she says, the two of them are going to figure out which flowers match the people Alfyn is telling her about so she can get a better picture of them. 

(They pick several to weave into crowns while they talk, before realizing the fact that they’ve been grown in a dedicated plot of land may mean that Zeph spent the money on specific seeds hard to come by in the riverlands, and that they were perhaps not meant to be used for handicrafts. They enter a strict pact of secrecy on the matter.)

Since H’aanit is who they started with, she’s lucky enough to have a whole handful of delicate bloodroot flowers plucked up out of their foliage in her honour. Lucky indeed! The blooming period is extremely short for these, and Alfyn’s visit only just so happened to fall within the few weeks before summertime begins where their thin white petals have opened up to the world. 

Nina isn’t so sure about something so little and fragile-looking being a match for someone Alfyn has described almost exclusively in terms of strength, and perseverance, and inspiring fortitude, but it’s the _roots_ and not the flowers, he assures her, that are so special about this particular plant. They form tight, hardy colonies together, and make such a highly caustic secretion of their own natural volition that pretty much anything would think twice about messing with them! Even the flowers, Alfyn comments, lovely as they are, create such strong effects that it can be very dangerous to ingest them in anything but the most sparing of dosages. He recommends that he and Nina both refrain from licking their fingers before they’ve had a good thorough scrub.

Alfyn noticed the group of common evening primroses in the garden as soon as the two of them rounded the side of the house of course, and now that he’s got the chance to remark on how convenient it is that one of his friends already shares her name with a flower he does so with a laugh. Nina smacks him on the back of the head when he does, with a surprising amount of strength in her twiggy little arm, and tells him to quit being lazy. She’s right, obviously, and Alfyn could never bring himself to compare Prim to _anything_ calling itself “common” anyways.

Eventually, through doing his best to put into words just _how_ incredible it is to see his friend dance at her most carefree and comfortable, he finds his eyes drawn over to the pink-red ruffled begonias thriving along the length-wide edge of the plot. Nina is more interested in hearing about the glamorous and beautiful flowing clothes Primrose wears upon the stage, than what the flower that reminded Alfyn of them is handy in treating when it’s boiled down into a tea or any other such mundane preparation- it’s internally, with a sad smile to himself, that he hopes the last lady of the Azelheart house has found herself any of the succor that a simple begonia can bestow to the ill.

(As he and Nina try their best to thread the thin stems of their bloodroot flowers together without damaging them too badly, to comparable levels of clumsy success, Alfyn wonders where H’aanit and Primrose’s own travels have taken them together in the time since he saw them last. The memory of their notable physical closeness, as their big band of eight’s journeying grew to a close, slaps a far happier grin on his mug.)

Alfyn bursts out laughing when he spots the ostentatious, swooping and regal deep purple blooms adorning some larkspur sprigs over a ways towards the far end of the garden, and it’s raucous enough to fully interrupt his reminiscing completely. Nina gives him a look, and though he’s been trying his darnedest not to turn their garden party into a botany lesson, he cannot resist dispensing a little knowledge here.

“You wanna guess what part of this one,” he gets on his hands and knees and reaches _way_ over to thumb the bell end of a grand and healthy-looking blossom, “is what we use the most often fer makin’ tinctures n’ such?”

“No,” Nina rolls her eyes and sighs, “but you’re still gonna tell me I bet.”

“It’s the _seeds,_ ” Alfyn snickers, and then is fully overcome again by a bout of chuckling. “All the frill and finery adornin’ the outside here, and _that_ bit’s barely useful at all, unless you find yourself in need of a long squat on the bog!”

To Nina’s growing distaste, he turns his class on plantlife into a cautionary tale about the dangers of using grandiose, overly-affectatious language where you might just talk plainly- with a number of examples of the good Professor Cyrus Albright’s incurably honeyed tongue. 

In truth he had been slightly worried to speak too much about Cyrus, gods bless the man- the last thing Alfyn would want to do is unknowingly help create another victim in his preternaturally long record of accidental “courtships”, never _mind_ one as young as not-so-little Nina here. But thankfully, she seems to find his recollections of the scholar-gentleman a downright bore, and is eager to move on to hearing about a different one of his friends.

Tressa’s image he finds easily in the vibrant, roughly-edged petals of the small and generously planted cornflower. It’s the striking and joyful sky blue of the plant, rather than any of its cleansing or anti-inflammatory applications, that first takes Alfyn’s mind to the punchy lass herself- she could stand to be a bit less inflammatory too, he remarks with an anxious chortle, at the memory of how very nearly disastrous that intrepid spirit of hers might have proved at their first meeting if he and some of the rest hadn’t been present in Rippletide when they were.

By this point, Alfyn is quite embarrassed to note, he has been having a rather more difficult time simply trying to put a name to many of the things Zeph has planted behind his house. There are a few standards it could never hurt to find bountifully close at hand, of course: things like chamomile, lilac, chrysanthemum and dandelion are always good to have around even when they’re out of season. But he’s clearly been neglecting his book learning of late, because a great number of the clustered stems and stalks before him here may as well be grown on the moon for how recognizable they are. Oh, there’s some hyssop. That one he does know.

As impressive as it is, he blusters aloud, worrying his sloppy wreath of bloodroot flowers between his fingers as he scans beyond the boundaries of the garden, Zeph’s personal crop is just a bit too limited for Alfyn to be doing the rest of his friends the same justice as those who’ve gone before! It wouldn’t be fair, he asserts, though Nina never really did set any strict limitations on the things he is and isn’t allowed to take into consideration for this in the first place. She doesn’t seem terribly bothered to expand their criteria anyways, rather, Alfyn can tell from the way her knee’s started to bounce off the grass that she might be growing bored with just sitting outside by now.

Happily, he notices a healthy looking shrub of honeysuckle over towards the back of a neighbouring home, and need look no further for a reminder of dear Ophilia. Some people are just sweet by nature, he remarks, pointing out the pale fairy-like flowers adorning the upper reaches of the branches, and even knowing he hasn’t been clever by any stretch he does still laugh genuinely at the disgusted scoff Nina makes at his poor wordplay.

Ophilia’s just about the only one who ever bothered _really_ listening to Alfyn talk about medicine, he mentions in a play-sulk. There is such a thing as being _too_ nice, is all Nina has to say in return.

From the start he _was_ worried about this happening, but in the end Olberic’s still got him stumped… the man simply isn’t very flower-like, he muses aloud, unless you’re counting tree flowers. Tree flowers _obviously_ count, Nina comments. They’re still _flowers_. She’s certainly got him there. But it still seems unfair, for Olberic alone to have the privilege of being something as tall and grand as a tree!

Nina fails to take issue with such an imbalance in their field of comparison, arguing that a blooming plum sounds just about perfect for the austere and yet gentle knight from Alfyn’s stories. She _does_ have a point… the kid’s sure developing a good eye for people. Or ear, rather, for people she’s heard a description of. He has to insist, though, just for his own investment in not making any of his friends sound more important to him than the others, that _his_ choice for Olberic is going to be closer to ground-level than a plum tree.

Catchfly! So he exclaims, not au-propos of much, as the two of them have begun a few leg and core stretches up on their feet, to rehabilitate themselves from so much sitting prone on the ground. He doesn’t see any in Zeph’s garden, and when he talks to the bloke next he’s going to heartily recommend finding some to plant nearby, because out in the wider world, Alfyn’s _seen_ the job they do at protecting a patch from any manner of small flying pests! The wonderful little catchfly is a more stalwart guardian than a man with a whole canister of repellant dust, and with that Alfyn settles happily on what in his mind is a perfectly fitting flower to evoke a chivalrous and true bulwark for the common folk.

Nina asks him if this Sir Olberic is an abnormally sticky person. He’s not, Alfyn states in confident knowledge. He’s in fact quite particular about cleanliness.

It seems like an awfully rude thing to do then, Nina accuses, comparing him to such a thoroughly sticky little plant when the man himself takes care to avoid being sticky.

Alfyn can’t dispute her logic. He still thinks, though, that the catchfly is a blessing to have around and a gallant example of nature’s practical beauty. So they agree to disagree on the topic of Sir Obleric.

“So, what about this shady thief character you’ve mentioned here and there in all this?” Nina finally asks, picking some bits of grass from the front of her trousers. “What was his name again... Theodore?”

“Therion,” Alfyn corrects her. He sounds extremely smooth and natural, and doesn’t even stutter!

“Alright, whatever. Still, his type should be easy to match, right? Something dark and _dangerous,_ like, like _nightshade!_ ”

“Oh c’mon now, _dangerous?_ You aren’t thinkin’ he’s some crude robber or bandit, are ya?” 

Alfyn has no idea what Nina must think of Therion, as he’s made a conscious effort to avoid speaking much about the man at all until now. He is _very_ invested, still, in not making any of his friends out to be more important than each other. His throat is starting to feel tight.

“Those sort ain’t thieves, then?”

“Mmmmm, well, they _are,_ in a manner o’ speakin’, sure- as much as nightshade is like a tomato, just from bein’ in the same plant family and all…”

“So… he’s a tomato?”

Alfyn feels more like a tomato himself, currently. A dreadfully underripe one- all shrunken up, and full of queasy sour pulp.

The vines do flower, though, don’t they.

“Nah, not the food nor the blossom- too red, an’ too _yellow_.”

“No red or yellow flowers then? I still think nightshade works… Why’s this Therion _not_ like nightshade?”

“Well, would _you_ like bein’ compared to a deadly poison? He’s my friend, an’ he’s a fine bloke!”

Talking with Zeph is one thing. The two of them are of an age, and men _grown_ besides. Nina’s a canny sprog, and Alfyn already knows he’s total rubbish at dispensing untruths, even if they’re those of omission, so it’s only a matter of time before he makes it clearer than glass the kind of feelings he’s got for their current subject of debate. He feels half sick with worry about every word he lets out his mouth.

Because he just isn’t sure. Is thirteen old enough to… Well, how old was he himself when he learned--? He just plum never even _thought,_ so is that the sorta connection Nina would be making herself? Why’s he even getting so scrambled about it in the first place? Gahh!

“You haven’t really told me at all yet what kinda bloke he is or isn’t, y’know, besides one who’s good at sneaking and stealing. What’s he like?”

Oh, no.

“Wh-what indeed! Ahahaha..”

Ohhh… to hells with it!!!

“Well for starters, he’s a proper gentleman and not some pillagin’ brute! Ahh, not a _proper_ gentleman like the Professor, though. Those two don’t get along so great actually, heh. I just mean he’s of the quieter type, I s’pose.”

“So he’s more like my brother than he’s like _you,_ you mean.”

“Exactly,” Alphyn laughs, already feeling the critters in his stomach start to quiet down their squirming. He’d gone and worked himself all up over nothing at all again, hadn’t he. “Reckon he’s cleverer than both me _and_ your brother put together an’ then some, though.”

“Neither of you are all that clever anyways,” Nina smirks.

“True enough. Cleverer even than _you,_ then, yer eminent geniusness! And he ain’t a brat about it, neither.” (Nina shoves him, there.) “I’m sure lotsa folks find him sour though. He’s just happy to keep to the sides most times, and them who don’t care to let him do so deserve a bit o’ curdle in their cream anyways if you ask me.”

“You mean he’s _mysterious_!” Nina just about gasps, abruptly more rapt and engaged than she’s been for the past hour and some. “Dangit, Alfyn, you shoulda just said that!”

“He ain’t, though…” Alfyn trails, ponderous and mildly startled. “He’s a friendly enough fella. Heck, even somethin’ of a joker at times.”

“I thought you _just_ said he prefers bein’ left alone.”

“Well- well sure, he _does,_ but he can still _talk_! An’ laugh, even!” 

The flustered heat rushing up Alfyn’s neck to his cheeks all of a sudden is only bolstered by the memory of what Therion sounds like when he chuckles.

A quiet, reedy noise that resonates smooth as can be from his chest up to his lips. Brief and rare… and pleasant.

Alfyn’s heartache spreads to his stomach and his throat, even, in wanting to hear it again.

“A-anyways! If you’ve already decided you’re comparin’ him to nightshade, or hemlock, or snakeroot, or any other devious nasty thing, I can’t rightly stop you from doin’ it!”

He’s ready to be through with this activity of theirs, perhaps. He lowers his face, trying to hide its colour.

“Golly, what are you _sulkin’_ about it for! You pick somethin’ better already, then.”

“... Thistle,” Alfyn mumbles, without any deliberation on the matter whatsoever.

“You’re tellin’ me a _weed_ is any less insulting than a poison?!”

“Weeds can be nice to look at!”

“It’s _covered_ in thorns.”

“Well, that’s why you only _look!_ ”

It is rapidly apparent that they are never going to reach an understanding on the matter. Thankfully Alfyn, eager to avoid further scrutiny, has conceived a brilliant distraction: he offers to show Nina how to properly swing a two-handed battle axe. She requires no persuading whatsoever, and they are both pleased to abandon altogether the subjective discussion of which flowers are rude to compare which people to.

Unfortunately for them both, it's rather more difficult to disguise introductory training with a gigantic metal weapon than it is the theft of some flowers. And something Zeph seems to find considerably more appalling, to boot. _Despite_ Alfyn's attention to practicing proper grip and posture! Regardless of the fully responsible safety measures and supervision he's been providing, Nina is quickly whisked out of his presence to help with preparing supper instead. When Alfyn remarks that a kitchen knife is just about as sharp as the edge of a two-handed axe anyways, it is not received in the good humour he hoped it would.

 _Thoroughly_ scolded, and then divested of his company, Alfyn is once more trapped at the mercy of his own idle thoughts. They waste no time at all in vigorously resuming their violent tug-of-war regarding the fate of that wretched piece of paper lurking beneath his chopping block. However the match unfolds on the morrow, and it _will_ be tomorrow- to this he is now fully resolved, after finally remembering his own nostalgic wanderlust with so much talk of his previous travels- the least he can do is be fighting fit for the dangers of the open road! And with his axe already at hand, there feels no better time than the present to remind his body, too, of some old journey routines.

Truthfully, he's been utterly neglecting his morning drills for some time already. Without Olberic and H'aanit's company to encourage and challenge him, waking up at the crack of dawn every morning to sweat and work himself sore all over hasn't been nearly worth the reward of more robust stamina. He badly misses whispering tavern songs at them to time their repetitions, not so loud as to wake their companions nearby, but still clear enough to make them _both_ flush with indignation at some of the raunchier verses. He misses trying to withhold his laughter at the horrendous snoring that sometimes erupted without warning from that tight cluster of bedrolls, and debating in a gleeful hush who was the worst between Primrose and Cyrus. He misses Therion's sometimes presence, never joining the group's exertions but still giving silent observance while he comfortably blinked the sleep from his eyes. His thick fringe of hair still lit funnily by the rising sun, flattened in odd places and standing askew in others.

Though it bestows upon his heart a powerful ache, to say little of his body, Alfyn discovers that happily he still does remember the sequence of stretches, exercises and forms he would have been undergoing with friends instead of on his lonesome not too long ago. They prove more refreshing and therapeutic than he expected- paying more heed to the muscles _outside_ his skull for the first time in weeks is a highly welcome bit of distraction. To such an extent that without his notice dusk has fallen near completely all of a sudden, and here he stands covered in an encompassing film of perspiration, exceedingly fatigued and hungry with none of the trappings for an easy meal ready for him inside.

One quick and uncomfortably frigid cloth bathing by the river takes place, and then a substitution for a less disgustingly filthy tunic- now he sits warm and rosy at the tavern's bar seating, smiling awkwardly at the lass behind the counter's mock despondence to having been eschewed his regular presence here after so many hellos about the village during the daytime. He's been saving his leaves for the coming journey is all, Alfyn sputters, and the lovely girl is kind enough not to press him on his awful fibbing. He pays for his favourite broth of leeks and cream, a generous amount of carvings from the day's roast, and a foaming tankard of sweet pale ale. Only _one_ tankard, he vows, and has his neighbour at the bar stand in as witness with permissions to intervene. A small feast to see himself off to a diet of hard and dry preserved foodstuffs is all well and good, but addling himself with drink for the first time in a fortnight on the eve of his departure is too egregious a manner of self-sabotage for Alfyn to permit himself _even_ after all the lallygagging he's done already.

It's still slightly miserable to be here by himself, he realizes with an easy calm, having little choice but to overhear the friendly and familiar chatter of the regulars in attendance with their typical groupings of old companions. But the light of the fireplace yet habitually lit in the persisting springtime chill, and the clamorous buzz of overlapping conversations- they're a close enough replica of Alfyn's own memories of different taverns all across the realm to be soothing nonetheless, if hollow. They wash over him and cut him adrift from his worries for the coming morning, though they continue to bob and sway on the horizon. Tomorrow will come, he'll gather his things and set out west into the cliffs, and he'll either have a letter tucked into his satchel or he won't- his destination doesn't change, nor does his intention to reunite with a very dear friend.

Alfyn settles into a comfortable melancholy, cradled by the warm and heady creeping flush his mug of ale grants him long after he's finished his supper. The low-lit haze misting the tavern's air from its wall-mounted oil lanterns is dreamlike, lulling him into a vaguer and more forgiving understanding of time's passage.

So when the bells above the doors chime and he glances blearily behind himself, the vision of Therion entering, bearing the strings of a modest rucksack over his shoulder, is certainly not one he right away believes as _real._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was not remotely included in my design doc, but i couldn't resist the urge to get to some flower language... nina's literally not even a character in the game, so she's more my oc here than the pixels just kinda feebly mumbling for alphyn's whole ch1. young teens have attitude man, when i was 13 i wanted to bite people
> 
> alf isn't aware of the symbolism of any of the flowers in this chapter (or in general), so i was using both their possible medical properties AND romantic meanings when i was researching them. in case you're curious:
> 
> bloodroot- protection, growth, strength  
> begonia- dark thoughts distracting from joy, danger and misfortune  
> purple larkspur- haughtiness (i like cyrus i just also like dunking on him)  
> cornflower- hope for the future, wealth and prosperity  
> honeysuckle- love, affection, devotion  
> catchfly- young love when red, betrayal when white
> 
> and thistle, of course: hardiness, misanthropy, vengeance
> 
> also please do not get on my case about ideal growing climates/conditions for all those and how incompatible they might possibly be its ALL fake its just video games


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alfyn tries to adapt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> surprising nobody, this fic continues to grow in size far beyond my initial plan

Therion promptly makes eye contact with Alfyn in taking in his view of the place, and seals it with as casual a nod of acknowledgement as anything. Just a small dip of his head, throwing his long tuft of fringe a bit further down over his face for a moment, and then he comfortably strides up to the bar. 

He takes a seat on Alfyn’s immediate left. He drops his rucksack down by his feet, and pays for something to eat and drink with a deft flick of the wrist into the folds of his cloak for a thin wad of leaves. It’s only when he’s got his meal before him, and has ventured a few testing swigs of a tall mug of thick honey ale (which he does seem to judge positively, if that eyebrow is any kind of giveaway) that he extends a largely more verbal greeting than his first.

“Your stomach for drink must have shrunk considerably, if you’re already so fish-faced after just one.” He glances pointedly over at Alfyn’s long abandoned and froth-streaked empty mug, with something close enough to a smile in his tone that it almost seems to appear on his face too.

It’s only with this that Alfyn finally realizes in full that he is  _ not _ in the cruel throes of some extravagant (and a little medically concerning) heartsick daydream. 

The very person he has been so fitfully preoccupied with for what feels like months upon months, now, has simply shown up twenty paces from his own doorstep, completely unannounced and in boastful disregard of common probability entirely.  _ And _ he’s making great fun of whatever dopey expression Alfyn’s got on his face about it, to boot.

“Wh--!  _ Fish- _ faced?!” Alfyn guffaws, uproariously, feeling that whole dopey face of his split into a huge dopey smile. If anyone in the tavern’s disturbed by the sudden clamor up at the bar they don’t bring their quarrel over, and even if they did he’s not sure he would notice anyways with the ecstatic happiness fair bursting right out of him at the moment!

“Does that stubborn wit of yours not letcha just say a simple  _ hello _ ? Good gods, blame a man for bein’ surprised!”

The thunderous clap on the back he gives Therion sends the whole expanse of his shoulders reeling forward, and spills some of his ale on to the bartop.

“Eager for us both to be swimming in it eh,” he sighs, in a just barely put-upon way.

“Ahh sorry ‘bout that, sorry! Next one’s on me! I just w-- H- Why-?”

Alfyn feels like he probably does not look very sorry, but he’s not altogether too aware of himself currently, beyond the joyful hammering of his heart and the impossible number of words failing to reach his lips in any coherent manner. All the things he’s been thinking of talking about and asking about for weeks already are shoving at each other urgently trying to jump the queue out of his mouth, and as the predictable result, nothing’s even made it that far. He  _ did _ have a feeling this sort of thing might happen, and obviously found no remedy.

Thankfully, Therion’s just of that keenly observant sort! Able to navigate on to the meaning of some excited stuttering like it’s nothing.

“I’ve got some business here, that’s all.” He takes another casual swig of his ale, and definitely seems quite visibly taken with it. It’s one of Alfyn’s own favourite brews, personally, and he’s more than glad to have found another appreciative mind! Partial to the sweeter things, he’s always been.

And then following a brief pause, like an unpleasant afterthought Therion is reluctant to share: “With you, as a matter of fact, but it’s nothing urgent.”

So he says, but the type of business people normally have with Alfyn has long since made him predisposed to questioning what is and isn’t “urgent”. Oh so easily, the quickness of his pulse has turned into a more dread-borne thing.

“I think I’ll be the judge o’ that,” Alfyn huffs, with a slightly sick feeling he can only hope hasn’t already begun to poison the good cheer of their reunion. 

He hasn’t utterly neglected to make note of those things he normally does in people as they exist physically in proximity to him, from sheer force of habit. But he was definitely caught up well enough in the explosive delight of meeting Therion again so  _ soon _ that his observations took place as a near fully subconscious process. It takes him a fair bit longer than it would at his most aware, for Alfyn to realize his friend has been subtly favouring his right hand in his use of dinner utensils. Nothing too drastic, or as drastic as one so fluidly ambidextrous might show it at least- just an aversion to motions that take too severe a rotation of his wrist. Covered in tight cloth as it is, any more is impossible to discern.

“Had your fill of staring, have you?”

Alfyn instantly feels himself redden to the tips of his ears, as he perhaps would not have until quite recently. Therion’s expression belies amusement in its small upward quirks rather than any genuine offense, but Alfyn still finds he can meet it only for the barest moment before profound embarrassment turns his gaze down to his own lap.

“S’pose so!” he laughs, an automatic tic, feeling lightheaded to the brink of dizziness and looking anywhere besides the person he is speaking to.

“You’ll have noted, then, that I am not suffering any afflictions of a life-threatening or even particularly inconvenient nature.”

“Ohh fine then, Alfyn the worrywart strikes again, woe betide the fool who so much as stubs a toe within a bird’s eye view n’ all that!” 

He pantomimes a dismissive wave in Therion’s general vicinity, but having already done away with his own meal close to an hour ago, there’s nothing much at the bartop before him to keep any pretense of occupying his attention where it’s not.

“You’ll let me see to your wrist bright n’ early on the morrow, at least?” It wouldn’t behoove either of them for the mood to be getting sombre all of a sudden, so Alfyn is honestly trying not to be  _ too _ much of a stick in the mud about it… But he really does have to insist.

Therion wrinkles his nose. “If it’s all the same, ‘reasonably lit at midday’ would be more agreeable.” Alfyn laughs appreciatively, there. “I was never much for those drills at the crack of dawn you and some of the others were always so insistent about keeping to.”

It’s an odd thing. He can’t even put a name to it, as he feels this… almost  _ sad _ sort of warmth, flooding all throughout his chest and starting to fill up to his throat- Alfyn is so suddenly and thoroughly touched to have been thinking about the same old things as Therion, on the same day at that, that he isn’t sure it’s not starting to bring teardrops to his eyes.

It certainly makes him more open than he intends. “Me neither, If I’m bein’ fully honest about it,” he admits, after a sheepish attempt at a chuckle that comes a little too close to cracking. Therion graciously doesn’t make any comment on that- just allows Alfyn to carry on as he does, quietly gazing over the brim of his mug.

“It was just the company, what kept me at it every morning. I’d have tagged along just the same if we were meetin’ up half past midnight in the pitch dark.” 

It strikes Alfyn as so thoroughly strange and wrong, for him to feel this lonely even as he enjoys the very presence of the one person he’d wished to see most.

One of Therion’s rare little laughs echoes down into the half emptied hollow of his drinking cup, a quiet “Hm!” through his nose. It gores straight through Alfyn’s heart and lungs like the tusk of a charging boar, and takes the breath out of him with just the same force.

“I might have actually participated if you had been,” Therion murmurs, in just perceptibly dry enough a tone for it to be apparent he’s not completely serious.

Eager for a cheap opportunity to restore some of the levity he’s sucked out of the room, Alfyn pretends not to notice. “Well shucks, if I knew that I’d have  _ begged _ to try switchin’ up the schedule a bit!” He’s not even being dishonest about that, really. “It really was great fun, y’know.” It really was. “Well, once you got used to all the aches and the sweating.”

No, this won’t work. He’s already sick of hearing himself talk. He feels like he’s belaboured the point of one happy little coincidence, made it less genuine through every pointless word since. And even  _ that _ is such a trite thing to put meaning into it’s started to make him queasy.

Therion just gives an easy shrug of his shoulders, clearly unbothered by any of Alfyn’s insipid rambling. The visual familiarity of that does settle his stomach a little. “Still more fun to spectate, in my opinion.”

And  _ now _ Alfyn is completely preoccupied with the idea of Therion having fun,  _ watching him _ and having fun… watching him while he develops aches, and… sweats... 

His mind cannot take much more activity of this nature.

He must be getting tired. It’s late, later than he must think it is for sure, and he’s been sleeping terribly for days now on top. He’s probably been tired already for some time, and it’s making him piss poor company to someone he wants to be giving his absolute best.

“A-” he coughs and stammers, “anyways, I take it you’re put up at the inn? I can drop by to take a look at that wrist after noon, or any time you please really.”

He’ll let Therion finish his very late supper! Stop badgering the man, after he’s already taken what must have been a tiring journey.

“Haven’t booked a room yet,” Therion says, politely as one could hope to around a full mouthful of stewed potato. “The road was a touch longer than I expected, and I thought I’d rest my feet over a hot meal before anything else.” 

The lovely exaggerated outward curve of his cheek recedes once more as he swallows. He looks well pleased by his supper too, not just the ale. Alfyn does anxiously hope, as if he’d made and served it himself, that Therion’s got no cause to be dissatisfied with the bowl of Clearbrook hospitality set before him. He hopes he can feel warmed and cared for, in this little old place where Alfyn was born and raised up with that same comfort.

“Well, if there are no vacancies I can manage outdoors just fine.”

Alfyn quits just staring at Therion’s mouth in favour of voicing his impassioned disapproval of the total nonsense that just came out of it.

“Now hang on, not while I’ve got a roof to stay under you won’t!” Just about anyone can  _ manage _ outdoors, but that doesn’t mean they should have to go shirking the basic niceties so readily! “Honestly!! It’s the  _ least _ I can do to offer my own place, after all this time! It sure ain’t as nice as the inn, but it’s free!”

It is  _ definitely _ not as nice. Or as spacious, or clean or tidy, and it’s only got the one window. But it really is the least he can offer. It’s not even the start of what Alfyn could  _ want _ to offer!

Therion for his part calmly finishes another whole spoonful of his dinner. “Not to ask the obvious,” he prefaces with nary a glance, and sneaks another quick sip of broth. So the soup must be good too! Good! Good. “But you  _ do _ only have the one bed?”

Funnily, Alfyn had never considered this objective fact problematic. Or even at all, in the first place.

“A-- ahh, well,”

He didn’t--!

Oh gods, he didn’t think that- he  _ really _ didn’t even mean--!!!

“Well, the floor’s good enough for me! The way I’m sleepin’ lately, better someone who can actually get decent use from the thing lie down in it!”

Alfyn’s face feels impossibly hot, the inside of his head is empty, and he wishes to run out the tavern doors and be immediately buried in a rockslide. But in spite of all this he miraculously babbles enough slightly too personal truth to compose a response, then purses his terrible thoughtless mouth shut  _ tightly _ before it can do any worse.

Therion blinks at him coolly, chewing his food, with a blank look that feels so perceptive Alfyn can’t bear to hold it for more than a second. He clears his throat. He stares at his own right foot. He might throw up.

“Well,” he hears Therion parrot, and his stomach lurches like he really will be sick. “If I find myself without options I suppose I know where to go knocking.”

Alfyn risks a glance, but only a quick enough one to see that Therion has gone right back to just enjoying his meal.

“Unless Clearbrook’s traffic has increased tenfold since I was last here I doubt it will come to that, though.”

He can probably get through this now. As long as Therion keeps on… not looking at him.

And he’s right anyways, obviously! Gosh.

“True enough! You’re the first traveler we’ve seen in weeks,” Alfyn is able to follow with not too much of a delay, and even a little fully organic laughter, because the last significant group of itinerants to rent a room probably included  _ him  _ in it. Honestly, what’s wrong with him? “They’ll be tickled pink to have your custom, I bet.”

“No need for any tickling,” Therion quips nonchalantly, and Alfyn nearly chokes on his own spit. “Just somewhere to rest my head.”

“Oh you  _ know _ what I mean!!”

He’s obviously just having the mickey taken out now, as if the way Therion peeks over at him and  _ snorts _ didn’t make it clear enough. He still can’t do much about the hot and clammy blush crept all the way up his neck again, even as he bestows another clap across the shoulders in manic fluster, makes Therion spill some of his supper again, rushes to apologize again.

Alfyn’s not sure how, in the end, he finally extracts himself from the tavern. But he does have total certainty it’s with some abrupt and awkward non-sequitur, the embarrassment of which dogs him all thirty seconds back outside and through his own front door. Long after he’s pulled that shut behind him he stands with his boots still on half atop his ratty mud-stained old welcome mat, feeling his heart throbbing and squirming inside his throat like he’s just swallowed a live bullfrog.

He’s-

He was happy, of  _ course _ , is  _ still _ happy! That Therion has just appeared out of the night like this, like some sort of impossible dream. So much that he doesn’t know what to do with himself besides keep breathing, and even that’s not so easy just now. 

Maybe  _ too _ happy. Whatever it is, this, overwhelming excitement so far surpassing itself it’s gone sour and nauseating- Alfyn’s not sure how to… experience it. Beyond feeling it.

He’s happy to see Therion. Happy Therion’s his old self, far as he can tell from a single conversation at least. And if Therion’s changed at all he’s happy to get to see how, too, so that ain’t the problem.

Zeph was right, Alfyn realizes, and the dark floor under his gaze twirls dizzily at him. The problem’s  _ him _ , of course. 

He wasn’t ready for this to happen tonight. 

He’s not ready. 

He’s so nervous his knees are wobbling, and for what? After  _ what _ ? A quick “hello again, good to see you, how’s things?” and nothing more.

Alfyn numbly sits himself down to pull his footwear off. All that simpering reassurance he gave his Ma those nights ago, that was all rot- all those things he said about feeling fine, feeling like  _ himself _ as long as he’s sitting  _ with _ Therion and talking to him like all’s normal instead of thinking of him from afar. His whole stomach twists painfully with guilt. He hates having lied to her like that.

He’s tired. It’s late, he’s thrown all out of sorts, and he can feel himself floundering into the worst kind of negative obsessions he knows. He sluggishly gets to his feet again with a sigh, hoping to expel at least some of his countless lingering nerves. Undresses and gets into the wrinkled bed clothes he left atop his sheets in the morning, quicker than he ordinarily might, eager not to have the chance to ponder his own body in ways he’s never bothered with doing and then find it lacking.

From the door to his bed he passes by that damnable letter under his chopping block, of course, but it’s suddenly a strange comfort just in being something Alfyn is  _ used _ to worrying about.

He still wants to rip it up and throw the pieces into the river.

He doesn’t do that, because he’s already in bed. But as the minutes pass and he stares sideways at the dark unclear texture of his wall, knees internally itchy-sore in that awful awful way that makes him permanently discomforted unless he’s loudly flexing his feet around in all the covers, the merits of shredding the bloody thing with his own hands only seem to grow.

In the first place, what does he think giving Therion that letter is going to  _ do _ ?

Express his feelings… sure. Barely, if Zeph’s any judge of clarity, which Alfyn does doubt sometimes, but he can hardly be objective himself.

Will expressing his feelings help him stop acting like this? Like… like the queasy anxious utter wreck he feels,  _ is _ , truly is, just from sitting beside the man he wants to express them to.

_ Why _ does he want to tell Therion how he feels? What does he think is going to happen when, if, he does? What will change? What does he expect at all?

With growing frustration Alfyn is fast realizing he doesn’t have answers to any of this.

Nothing but a vague sense of wanting to “be with” a person is so laughably insufficient to describe how his heart just… 

But, see? He doesn’t have the words at all, does he. It’s the best he can do, and it’s hardly anything.

But he does want to be with Therion. Beside him, near him, listening to him talk about any old thing the way he talks. Somewhere Alfyn can see him just… keep on being Therion.

He’s got no immature, ridiculous hope that this sloppily defined “be with” of his is something that can be forever and evermore each day till the end of his life, like in an exaggerated fairytale romance for small children to have read to them. It might be allowed to be more frequent than only once in every several months, though.

Again he comes around to that question of  _ why _ . Why does he even wish for this so badly, when it’s put him in this worsened state of self-conscious painful awareness of everything he says and does to the point of frantic disgust? He still doesn’t know the answer, obviously.

He tosses restlessly on to his other side, glares at the counter of his work station in the dim light of the open window, and crams his eyes shut. The least he can do is  _ pretend _ he’s going to get much decent sleep.

_ You  _ **_do_ ** _ only have the one bed? _

Unbidden by anything but his closed field of vision, Alfyn hears that incredulous, utterly harmless question, and instantly every hair on his body feels in possession of its very own nervous system. He bolts upright and throws his covers off.

He’s not a child. He  _ knows _ the human body, and how it needs the things it does, and how folks sometimes go about helping each other out with those needs in ways that also convey emotional codependency and intimacy and affection and, love, and whatnot. Not… not the precise doing thereof or the nitty gritty details of that, necessarily, but--

\--the point is that he is not in a romantic relationship with Therion. They aren’t an item, or a couple, or sweethearts, because Alfyn has not told him yet that he would like for them to be any of those things, and therefore has not heard an answer to the affirmative and  _ therefore _ has utterly no business whatsoever even starting to imagine what being physically  _ with _ him might---!!!

It’s not a matter of wanting, or being curious, because it’s not a matter at  _ all _ and it would be so deeply disrespectful to do more than just indistinctly wonder at how another person’s body might feel, when you’re not even-

Besides.  _ Besides _ .

That’s not why he offered his bed.

Therion  _ knows _ that is not why he offered his bed, and wouldn’t have a single reason to suspect it was.

There was no implication of it whatsoever, so Alfyn should  _ not _ be thinking of Therion in his bed and getting sweaty palms and gooseflesh, because if Therion was in his bed it would be to sleep and Alfyn would not be in it with him.

Alfyn needs to not be in his bed right now.

He still does need to sleep, so he brings all the blankets and a pillow with him on to the floor to arrange into a passably not-too-uncomfortable nesting area. His floor’s still a far cry better than the lumpy ground outdoors.

His legs are still tense and restless and prone to their fidgeting habits, to say nothing of his brain, but even for the long haul of trying to fall unconscious doubtlessly in store for him, Alfyn is insistent on keeping his back turned from where he’d ordinarily be tossing around all night.


End file.
